The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  But energy he had, and drive. He had the energy for pirating in the Caribbean, for sailing the Round. Five years before, he had stepped ashore with the small crew of his pirate sloop, the Terror, and taken possession of Baldridge’s old haunt from the few drunks who lived there. He had the vision and energy to see it built up again to its former glory, to court trade from the American colonies and from London.

  He had done all that, and now he was at the top, and he moved with the languid quality of the nobility, let others serve him. He did not rush, he did not speak quickly, as was befitting a monarch. He dressed in the clothing of a gentleman and sported great capes lined with red silk and wide-brimmed hats with long feathers trailing behind. He understood that in order for his people to respect him as lord of St Mary’s, his every action, his every word, must be lordly.

  But for all his certainty about his own divine right to rule, Yancy was worried. He closed his eyes, still massaging his temples, pictured the faces of the guards. They were bored by the trial, pleased by the possibility of cutting off a man’s hands, disappointed when Yancy let him go. They were a brutish lot. Their loyalty was open to question.

  There were currently more than five hundred men on St Mary’s, and nearly every one was or had been a pirate, and those who had not were still of no higher moral character. They frequented the makeshift taverns along the harbor, caroused with the native girls on the beaches or in the thick jungle, spent their booty, died as broken wrecks in the dirt streets. They were his army, but how many could he really count on?

  Thirty, he reckoned. Those men who had first come with him, who had helped him build this up, who had recognized his place as king of it all. He had made those men rich, had given them harems, slaves. They lived with him in the big house, surrounding him. His Praetorian Guard. They would stand by him. Of the others? A third, perhaps, would stand by him, but they would be loyal to whoever they thought wielded the most power.

  The last would like to see him impaled. He had just added two more to that group.

  He sighed, stood up from his chair, which he thought of as a throne but did not refer to as such. He walked across the wide veranda, his cape swishing behind in a dramatic swirl of cloth, leaned his elbows on the stone wall, looked down on the town and the harbor below.

  The jungle spilled from the interior of the island right to the water’s edge, as if cascading down the hillsides, a thick green waterfall of vegetation running down to the sea. Here and there the green was splotched with color, the lovely flowers that were native to the place, bougainvillea and hibiscus, the air heavy with their scent.

  A dusty road ran from the center of the town below and followed the shoreline to the harbor to the south, where it terminated at a battered old dock. A boat was pulling away from the newly arrived ship to the docks, which probably meant mail. Yancy hoped there would be some good word from some quarter. He could use that.

  Soft footsteps at the far end of the veranda, and a native servant announced, ‘Dinner, Lord Yancy. Me bring there, lord?’ The servants were all Madagascar men and women, some slaves, some freemen, depending upon their station. It was Yancy’s standing order that the servants announce themselves from a distance. He did not need people sneaking around behind him.

  ‘Yes. Set it here,’ he said, never taking his eyes from the harbor and the boat that had now reached the dock. He could see a man get out of the stern sheets, step onto the dock, hurry along the road to the town.

  The servant set down the tray and retreated quickly. Yancy glanced at the food. Cold roast beef and a pot of mustard. Bread, butter, a slice of kidney pie. A gold chalice filled with wine. It looked like the Holy Grail.

  The cook was English, enticed off a visiting vessel with absurdly high wages and a small harem of his own. He was good, but that did not mean he was trusted.

  Each bit of food had a small piece carefully cut away where Yancy’s taster had taken his sample – cut cleanly to retain the neatness of the presentation, but cut obviously enough that Yancy knew that the food had been tested. A man as powerful as he had powerful enemies. He had to defend against assassination.

  Lord Yancy reached for the bread, realized he was hungry, then stopped. What if his taster were part of a plot? He was the one person who could easily poison Yancy’s food. Taste it, declare it fit, then slip some poison or other in it.

  He pulled his hand back slowly, as if the food might strike out at him like a snake if he made a sudden move. He felt his appetite melt away. He tried to recall if the taster had a family, a wife, children? If so, should he arrest one or more of them, hold them as collateral, with the promise that they would be tortured to death if he died of poisoning?

  He was staring at the food, trying to formulate a plan of action, when he heard boots on the cobblestone veranda, walking fast, confident. Henry Nagel, Yancy’s quartermaster during his days on the account, his second in command now, his chief adviser, his lord chamberlain. No one else would dare approach so boldly. He held a canvas bag in one meaty hand.

  ‘Ship has just come to anchor, my lord,’ Nagel said as he approached. ‘Arrived from London, forty days out. Brought mail. Captain brought it ashore, right off.’

  Yancy turned and looked at Nagel, who stood a respectful five feet away. Nagel was the physical opposite of Yancy – a big, powerful brute of a man, a seaman and pirate through and through, but with enough insight to realize that it was brains, such as Yancy had, and not brawn like his, that made a man a leader.

  ‘Henry, how loyal are the men of this island to me?’

  ‘My lord,’ Nagel began, and Yancy could hear the placating tone in his voice.

  ‘Tell me true.’

  Nagel straightened, tried to summon the words. He was the only man on the island who was not afraid of Yancy, and if his loyalty were not so far beyond question, Yancy would have had him killed. As it was, he could not imagine ruling St Mary’s without Nagel, the only man who dared tell him the truth.

  ‘My lord, the men here, they’re pirates. End of the day, they don’t give a tinker’s damn for any but themselves, but that ain’t something you don’t know. All us from the Terror, we what came here with you, we’d die for you and never think on it. You know that. The others? I reckon most of ’em would fight for you – if they thought there was a better than even chance you’d win against who you was fighting.’

  Yancy nodded. ‘What of our defenses? How are they?’ The battery and stockade on Quail Island looked formidable indeed, with ten heavy guns trained out over the water. Any ship going in or out had to run the narrow entrance, with the big guns at point-blank range.

  But the appearance was deceiving. The guns had been there since Baldridge’s time. Indeed, in Baldridge’s time there had been forty of them, but Yancy had sold off most of them, reckoning ten were more than enough for the job.

  Those that remained had received no maintenance for years. They were blacked now and the carriages repaired, but blacking and new carriages would not prevent them from blowing apart if the metal had grown weak through age or defects in the casting. Yancy had never fired them. He did not dare.

  ‘Well, as to that,’ Nagel said, ‘the stockade’s in pretty good shape. There’s some parts are rotting, but I mean to get some men on that, shore it up. Guns, well …’

  ‘Yes, yes, very well.’ Yancy had heard enough. He was suddenly tired of that conversation. ‘Is this the mail?’

  ‘Yes, yes, my lord.’ Nagel knew when to let a subject drop. He hefted the canvas bag and gently poured the contents onto the low stone wall. ‘Ain’t sorted it out. Thought you would want to see it first.’

  ‘Yes, yes …’ Yancy said, sifting through the letters that were piled on the wall. They were not all for him, of course. Some were for other denizens of St Mary’s, those well enough established to receive correspondence there, those few men who could read and write or knew someone who could read and write.

  Two letters from Yancy’s merchant in London, another fro
m his merchant in Newport, Rhode Island. ‘Bloody thieves …’he muttered, setting those letters aside. They were his middlemen, and they robbed him with never a scruple, but he needed them.

  He continued through the pile, separating his letters from the others. Here was a letter for Bartleby Finch, who operated one of the taverns near the harbor. Yancy had granted him permission, but still he did not trust the villain. ‘Let us see who is writing to this dog,’ Yancy muttered, and he set Finch’s letter with his own.

  A letter from his wife in New York; he wondered how she had smoked his whereabouts. She had been a pretty thing, the last time he had seen her, pale-skinned and blue-eyed.

  His gaze wandered off for a moment, unfocused, as he thought of her. He loved the girls of his harem, every one of them, their dusky skin and dark hair. But he missed the creamy skin and soft blond hair of the white women he had known. He had had a surfeit of Malagasy girls. He longed for a woman of European blood.

  Yancy shook off that thought, turned back to the letters. More nonsense from merchants, a letter from the governor of New York …

  His hand paused in midreach as he saw a familiar seal. He lifted the letter from the pile, gently, as if it might break, and turned it over. Richard Atwood. He had not heard from him in over a year.

  Atwood was one of Yancy’s triumphs, a well-placed secretary within the British East India Company. Yancy sent him yearly tribute in the amount of five hundred pounds. To Yancy it was a trifle, but it was more than twice the salary that the East Indian Company paid. In exchange, Atwood forwarded along shipping schedules, naval information, intelligence on the doings of the Great Mogul. Yancy had used that information to earn back many times what he had paid for it.

  He unsheathed the ornate stiletto that he always wore at his hip. The razor-sharp blade sliced away the seal, and he unfolded the letter. The paper was covered with Atwood’s neat clerk’s handwriting in even lines. ‘Lord Yancy, I trust this finds you well …’ it began, as Atwood’s letters always did. He knew to address his benefactor with respect.

  As you, sir, are all too Aware, the Company has at Various times in the Past endeavored to make sundry attacks on what they perceive as the great threat of Pyrates in Madagascar. They have never met with any great success, in part, I flatter myself to think, due to my timely warnings of their pending Action, but also in part due to a want of intelligent or active officers to lead such an Enterprise.

  There is now in the making another such Enterprise, but this one of a more Secretive Nature than the others. A few of the more influential members of the Company have undertaken to Outfit a private man-of-war and tender for the purpose of routing out Pyracy in Madagascar and there is reason to believe that their enterprise will meet with greater success than those in the past. In part this is due to their affording every request of the commander in the article of weaponry, supplies, and men, who are well paid and very numerous, and this being just the beginnings of their Preparations.

  The men who are secretly arranging this Expedition, with the consent of the Queen, have hired a privateer captain well known for his active nature and in whom they place great confidence. His name is Roger Press …

  Yancy gasped as if he had been doused with cold water, felt his hands clench, heard the crackle of Atwood’s letter as he crushed it in his fist.

  Press!

  It was not possible. Yancy stared out over the water, but did not see it. He saw only Roger Press’s ugly pockmarked face, that damned toothpick wagging between his lips like a little accusing finger.

  No, it is not possible. Press could not have escaped …

  But how many were there with that name? And of all of them, how many would be of such a kidney to lead a raid against a pirates’ stronghold? It was not inconceivable that Press had somehow redeemed himself, worked his way to a place of trust, at least trust enough that he might be given a secret and dangerous mission such as this.

  Nagel stood patient but worried. He knew better than to ask Yancy what the trouble was.

  Yancy looked at the date on top of the letter. The second of August, 1706. Almost three months past. If Press had sailed at the same time as the ship that had brought it, he could arrive any day. Even if he had not, he would not be far behind.

  Yancy whirled around, put his hands flat on the low wall, looked down at the cluster of buildings below and the few figures moving around, as if he could judge from there their fidelity and willingness to fight for his kingdom.

  ‘… Affording every request of the commander in the article of weaponry, supplies, and men, who are well paid and very numerous …’ That was what Atwood wrote. Would those villains down there stand and fight a well-armed and motivated band of mercenaries? Not bloody likely.

  In his mind he saw himself racing down a strange hallway, flinging open doors, looking for one that concealed the plan, the right action to meet this new threat. Door after door, and then he opened one and behind it was something he recognized as an idea. He studied the thing, and, as he did, it resolved into a possibility. A minute’s more consideration and it had become a full-fledged plan of action.

  Elephiant Yancy had not become Lord Yancy by folding in panic in the face of every adversity. He had become Lord Yancy by recognizing that all adversity held in its core potential opportunity.

  And here was adversity: his most hated enemy, still alive, well armed, and coming for him. But what Yancy saw was Roger Press sailing right into his arms. Roger Press, coming right to him and thinking it was all a great secret.

  He straightened, turned to Nagel, but before he could speak, he was overcome by a hacking cough that doubled him over and rendered him incapable of speech for half a minute.

  He looked up again, at Nagel’s worried face. ‘The time has come, my dear Henry. To prepare for the future. We cannot tarry. Our fate will be upon us soon.’

  CHAPTER 9

  The Elizabeth Galley drifted on her forlorn stream for two hours, helped along by the fitful breeze. When the tide turned at last and they could make no headway against it, they anchored with the second bower and kept anxious watch astern, fearful of pursuit.

  ‘They,’ in this case, did not include Thomas Marlowe. As concerned as he was – and he had more reason than any to be so – he was too exhausted to care. His arm ached terribly where the bullet had grazed him.

  He stumbled below, shed coat and sword, fell facedown on the cushion-covered lockers aft. He was hardly aware of Elizabeth cleaning and dressing his wound. He tried to recall if, in his younger days, he could have taken on such activity and not have felt so spent, but he could not recall and did not really care about that either, and soon he was asleep.

  He woke to find daylight coming in through the stern windows and the Elizabeth Galley under way, heeling slightly in what he perceived was a usable wind.

  He pulled himself from the locker, staggered out the door and into the waist, then up to the quarterdeck. It was a magnificent day, bright blue skies with only a smattering of benign clouds, a breeze to drive the ship along. The brown Thames stretched away before and behind, the shores seeming to bustle past, the crowds of shipping – every type of shipping – moving in every direction, with every conceivable purpose. But the stately Elizabeth Galley clove a straight wake downriver, lovely, noble in her headlong flight.

  ‘Captain …’ A worried-looking Peleg Dinwiddie hustled up to him, even as he was trying to get his bearings. ‘You had said, sir, we was to make for the open sea, and the tide turned, and this blessed breeze, and you was still asleep …’

  Elizabeth came up behind him, stepped around the portly officer, put her arm through Marlowe’s. ‘It is my fault, Captain. I begged Mr Dinwiddie to not disturb you, told him he should just proceed with your last order. Here I am giving commands, and me with less authority than the meanest sailor aboard.’

  ‘Never in life, my love.’ Marlowe kissed the proffered cheek. ‘You command us all. And I am grateful for the sleep, truly I am.’


  He looked around once more, saw that Gravesend was a mile or so astern of them. The place where he was born. He wondered if he would ever see it again.

  ‘Oh, Lord, there is nothing like sleep to set one up again!’ he exclaimed. The night before, his mood had been black and desperate. His life in ruins. But now, rested, under that perfect sky, he saw only possibilities. Now he needed only to get the others to share his vision.

  By tacit consent they did not even mention their predicament for the next three days. That was the time it took to drop down the Thames, past Southend and Sheerness where the river spread out to merge with the North Sea, to double Foreness Point and turn south, past Ramsgate and back through the Strait of Dover and into the English Channel once more.

  It was only there, with the Elizabeth Galley sailing a line almost halfway between England and France and out of sight of both, with only water and, on occasion, distant sails to be seen – sails that fled at the sight of them for fear they were pirates or privateers – did they undertake a formal discussion of their situation and what they might do about it.

  Elizabeth spoke first. ‘Our entire cargo, in which we have invested our very last penny, is sitting in that villain Dickerson’s warehouse. Our neighbors’ as well, and they will expect to be paid for it, out of our purse, I reckon, if we just abandon it. And now we are every minute leaving it farther behind.’

  Marlowe nodded thoughtfully as he watched her. It occurred to him that she had more than a financial stake in this. It had been her idea in the first place to use the Elizabeth Galley as a merchantman to save on shipping rates. If it ended up being their ruin, she would have to bear the guilt.

  ‘I fear,’ said Bickerstaff, ‘we have shipped all our eggs in a single basket, to rework the old saw. Worse, we have put other people’s eggs in as well.’

  It was not a crowded meeting. Just Marlowe, naturally, as captain and owner, and Elizabeth, being the bookkeeper and supercargo. Bickerstaff, to whom Marlowe had looked for advice almost since they met. And Peleg Dinwiddie, who, as first officer, had a right to take part in any such discussion.